Flaherty Wines » petite sirah

Cauquenes update: spring 2011

jen — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:23:00 +0000

Planting a vineyard in Cauquenes has turned out to be rather more complicated than initially envisioned, essentially because we are trying to establish a dry-farmed vineyard. The region receives plenty of rainfall (around 700 ml annually), and the plot has deep clay soils that retain the water. The mature vines should thus do quite well with dry farming. The problem is getting the tender new plants established. We have learned that syrah does not do well at all under these conditions, whereas petite syrah and tempranillo have both proved fairly hardy. Nevertheless, our loss rate is still higher than it would be with drip irrigation. As a result, we have had to replant major sections of our (tiny) vineyard each year. The fact that the vineyard is six hours away from our home doesn’t help. We have people working onsite, but it just isn’t the same as when the owner is present.

It appears, however, that we are finally moving forward. Nearly all the plants leafed out this spring, so we have a much more continuous vineyard than last year. Next winter we will start to gradually extend the planting, with a long-term goal of planting five hectares. We will be planting more petite syrah and tempranillo (probably a different clone than we currently have) and experimenting with cabernet franc and carignan.

In addition to planting, we improved the well last year by cleaning it out, digging about half a meter deeper, reinforcing the walls with concrete, and installing a pump. It is a surface well about 10 meters deep on the lower section of the property. We now pump water through a fixed line up to the water tanks and then gravity feed it from the tanks to the vineyard. The improved well gives us an excellent water source through at least half of the summer, so we’ll be able to irrigate the plants more consistently. Young vines need more irrigation in their first few years. Once they are established, we will gradually wean them from irrigation to encourage the development of deep roots.

We also installed protectors on the plants to keep them safe from hungry rabbits. Finally, we improved the fencing where the property faces the road.

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Progress on the new planting

jen — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:11:11 +0000

We were down in Cauquenes for New Year’s Eve, camping out in our remote little corner of the planet. We’ve made a lot of progress on the vineyard, with new water tanks and a piping system that enables us to water the new plants. We had an unusually wet spring, with rain every three to four weeks, so we didn’t need to start irrigating until around December 1st. Water is trucked in to the fill the tanks, and then it takes a crew of four about two and a half days to water the plants manually with hoses. It’s not the most efficient system, but it will get us through the season until we can get a more permanent water solution in place. At any rate, we’re planning on dry farming the vineyard once the plants are established, so we’ll only have to water for the first few of years.

The vineyard generally looks good. The tempranillo and petite sirah cuttings had a good success rate, and most of the new plants are leafing out nicely. The syrah, on the other hand, largely did not take. The good news is that the nursery has guaranteed the plants, so we’ll get replacement cuttings to replant those sections this winter. The bad news is that we’ve lost a year of growth, and we will incur considerable costs in replanting.

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Planting in Cauquenes

jen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:50:44 +0000

We were in Cauquenes over a long weekend recently, checking on the new vineyard planting. Over the winter, we cleared two and a half hectares and planted just under one and half. The original idea was to plant all the cleared area, but the nursery that was going to supply a large share of our plants discovered that they had nematodes. It was a setback to have to scramble around for plants at the last minute, but it is very good that they found that out before they delivered our plants, rather than after. Nematodes are tiny, worm-like insects that feed on the vine’s roots. Believe me, you don’t want them in your vineyard. Note that nematodes are not the same as phyloxera, which also feeds on roots. Phyloxera is actually a true insect: the larvae feed on the roots, whereas the adults are aphid-like and feed on the leaves. Chile does not have phyloxera, so we are able to plant own-rooted (that is, ungrafted) vines. We’re the only country in the world that still does that, so we are very cautious about avoiding the introduction of phyloxera.

Our original plan included planting two different clones of tempranillo—one from cuttings of our Aconcagua vineyard and the other from the now-quarantined nursery. The plants grown from our own cuttings were fine, as they were rooted by a local nursery, so we were able to plant roughly half the tempranillo originally calculated. We also were able to find syrah and petit syrah to round out the planting. The total came to 10,317 plants, which breaks down as follows: 4,377 tempranillo, 3,490 syrah, and 2,450 petite sirah. The vines are planted at a fairly high density of 1.2 meters by 1.2 meters, and they will be head pruned and dry farmed once established.

Finally, we decided to postpone grafting over the pais (or mission) to carignan, since we don’t have a good water source. By next year, we’ll have either a well or (more probably) a reservoir, so we’ll do the grafting then. Our caretaker will appreciate having grapes to make chicha for one more year.

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